


De Mortuis Nihil Nisi Bonum

by anoyo



Category: Gundam 00
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-16
Updated: 2008-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/anoyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Spoilers</b> for all of season one, and up to episode 8 of season two.  The Innovators ask Lyle to deliver a package to Tieria, but first allow him to read and understand its contents.  When Lyle reads the circumstances of his brother's death, he has to put his new understanding into what he has already begun to learn about the Meisters with whom he works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	De Mortuis Nihil Nisi Bonum

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Mechaphiles Holiday Fic Exchange 2008](http://mechaphiles.nadleeh.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=51). This fic was actually one of the three finalists for winning the long fic category, and lost to one of the best Gundam 00 fics I've ever read. I was pretty proud of this one. Ironically, I wound up with [Zanzou's](http://zanzou-chan.livejournal.com) prompt, and we accidentally gave Miss Hallelujah a hernia by figuring that out when I asked Z what my prompt _meant_. All that aside, there are definitely spoilers for season one of Gundam 00, and this was written after season two, episode 8, so consider it to be a spoiler for up to that point, as well.

The Earth was truly a beautiful place, even in the dead of winter. Global warming had warmed even the Northern reaches of Moscow's province, changing the dead, frozen landscape of the past into a softly snow-covered wonderland, evergreens and winking lights. At 05:00, the night's snow yet remained untouched, pristine and white, a stark contrast to the slushy brown it would become with foot and vehicle traffic by midday.

Despite the ungodly hour, perhaps this wasn't such a horrible time of day, or ridiculously out of the way location. At least it was picturesque.

Maybe they'd even blow it up later.

As he lit a cigarette, checking his watch once more in the process, Lyle scanned the streets for the "delivery" he'd been sent to pick up. Wang Liu Mei had given him plenty of descriptions to go by, an explicit time and location, as well as precise details as to how the delivery was to take place. The only thing she had not described in anal-retentive detail was, interestingly, what precisely the delivery was, other than a file. When he had asked if he could read it, the face on the vid screen had simply smiled, said,

"I wouldn't be sending you if you couldn't."

And here he'd been figuring he was making all the ridiculous errand trips because he was the new kid. Man. Whatever.

There, a little redheaded girl entering a mostly-abandoned early-morning coffee shop. Not a precisely Russian girl, either; that was the big tip-off. Lyle dropped his half-gone cigarette, letting it smolder and wink out in the snow, fixing the strap of the bag he was carrying as he dashed across the street and into the shop. He opened the door and tapped off his snow just as the girl handed the cashier a credit card, and the cashier handed her two cups of coffee. Accepting her receipt, the girl turned around directly and flashed a smile at Lyle, at once charming and predatory.

"Pick a table?" she asked, voice taking on a familiar cadence, as though they'd known each other for years, and not minutes. Lyle chose a table closest to the fireplace, quiet and calm, the crackling flames meshing perfectly with the old, mellow, operatic Christmas music that the shop was playing calmly in the background. As the girl slid in beside him, she asked, still in a familiar voice, "How was your flight?"

Taking his cup of coffee, ignoring that he didn't like coffee, Lyle took a sip, then shrugged, looking up to flash the girl a winning smile. "Very flight-like. Nothing exploded."

The girl smiled in return, opening her coffee to pour in some honey, stirring it. "Always a good omen, not exploding." She took a sip. "Usually means you're still alive."

"Or something really did explode, you're dead, and you don't remember it, though at that point, who the fuck really cares?" Lyle continued for the girl, sipping his coffee black again.

"Nena," the girl said, holding out a hand, "your delivery-in-transit girl. What did Wang Liu Mei say?"

Running over the details again, Lyle could find no point where Wang had said not to tell the delivery girl anything; no skin off his back. "To be here at this time, watch for a girl with pink hair, politely follow her invite to coffee, and engage in small talk until she decided to relay her information, in the form of a file. Which I can read, if I want." He smiled again, treating this like the romantic liaison the cashier was sure to believe it was.

Nena nodded, sipping her coffee. "Totally your prerogative, if you want to read it. Or I can just sum it up for you, if you like, after I give you the delivery instructions." She added a packet of sugar.

The track changed, a lilting, almost Celtic carol; ironic. "Sounds like a lovely plan," Lyle replied, swirling his cup around, as though that would make it less bitter.

A small envelope slid across the table. "This is your flight information back. Don't worry about looking at it, you'll have plenty of time." A larger, manila envelope, unsealed, slid across to join the first. "This is the delivery. It's a letter, and some data, mainly on operations from four years ago, Veda and the culminating uselessness of the Meisters." Nena smiled prettily, taking another sip of coffee. "As Wang said, you may read it, if you like, but the letter itself is for Tieria. An invitation, so-to-speak, to actually do his job. Those are the delivery details; would you like me to sum up the contents now, or would you rather read them yourself?"

Lyle smiled handsomely in response to Nena's girlish smile, wondering when this had become a duel of politeness. "I'd like you to sum them up for me, thank you, though I'll read them as well later. It's a long flight."

"I'm sure." Nena took a slightly longer drink, then simply opened the manila envelope. Within the file lay first a beautifully penned and almost ridiculously long letter, addressed in a familiar manner to Tieria, either for actual familiarity, or to piss the man off. "This letter is basically a summary of the contents, talking about the original goals and how Tieria's failure to meet them productively resulted in all the death and destruction of five years ago. It's very politely insulting." Nena smiled again. "My flight was also rather long."

She flipped the letter upside down on the open partition of the envelope. "These next three," she said, fanning three stapled documents, "are data statistics from that fight and the couple immediately preceding fights, when Veda stopped working properly and the crew improvised rather unfortunately, on both Sumeragi and Tieria's advice, resulting in the destruction of three suits and the disappearance of another. Very irresponsible."

The documents were not long, but rather elaborately concise. Lyle flipped through them, considering the information Setsuna had given him the first time they'd met. It had been a basic conglomeration of what Celestial Being did, what they had done, what their goals were, how they were working towards them, and a brief summary on what "Lockon Stratos" had been a member for, which he'd taken for what he would be doing. There had also been a short file on his brother's death, which Lyle had decided after joining was Setsuna's maladjusted way of offering condolences.

Over the weeks with the crew, he'd gotten a bit more information -- the computers thwarting him by legitimately not having anything more than what Setsuna had given him, which stunk to Lyle of deletion. He'd gotten enough information to conclude that the man who had killed the rest of his family had killed his brother, as well, and shortly thereafter Celestial Being had gotten their tails kicked, Allelujah being taken captive after a fight with his girlfriend, Setsuna disappearing after another fight, his brother dead, and Tieria fine, or something. The last he'd never gotten much information on, but the running assumption was that he'd managed to keep his Meister ass intact.

Nena's information, however, alluded otherwise. Three destroyed, one disappeared. The one was fairly obviously Setsuna's old suit, and there were only four. Process of elimination said the other three were pretty nonfunctioning by the end of that fight.

The moment Lyle's fingers dropped the documents, Nena flipped them over on top of the letter, moving on. "The rest of this is what Tieria should be doing, but isn't, insinuating that he's a hypocrite." Nena shrugged. "I've only met the guy once, and he was sort of a dickhead, so I just ran with this being accurate." She smiled again, as though she'd forgotten she was supposed to be eerily polite, and only just remembered. She flipped that document over, turning to the last of them. "This last page, though, is pretty explicit instructions, from what I can tell. It kind of hints that Tieria should have seen this coming, the file I mean, and that he needs to be doing his job a little better."

"I see," was Lyle's response, taking a small sip of coffee. He watched as Nena flipped the file shut again and finished off her coffee, checking her watch.

She shoved both envelopes in Lyle's direction, standing up. "I have to be off; I have another delivery to make." She patted the bag she'd pulled his two envelopes from, then smiled again, large and fake. "Have a lovely flight."

Lyle watched her go, taking another sip of coffee before he remembered he didn't actually like coffee and scowled, scooping the envelopes into his bag, his coffee into the trash, and himself back out onto the street. The city had turned on while he'd been having his coffee, and he managed to hail himself a cab to the airport, arriving just in time to catch his flight.

His timing suggested the entire meeting had been prearranged, or even scripted.

He chose not to think about it.

While he flew back to the random backwater Celestial Being was currently floating under, he read through the file in more depth, amused utterly by the condescendingly rude manner in which the letter had been written, and how fallible it painted Tieria. The data had managed to contain precisely the information he'd wanted: the chain of events leading to his brother's death, and Celestial Being's epic loss. Specifically, it painted Tieria's role in that death. Lyle knew that the information was skewed, knew it logically, but it was hard to get past the clearly accusing voice the data had been compiled in.

He read through the theoretical directions the sender of this letter -- a name not signed, only implied, which to Lyle meant nothing -- was attempting to give Tieria with a great degree of confusion, and an almost equally great degree of instinctual fear. The explicit directions were something else entirely, insinuating a disbanding of the public figure of Celestial Being, or rather simply Tieria's abandonment thereof.

Lyle didn't know the sender of these documents, but Tieria must, and that very thought made him very glad his ties to Celestial Being were selfish at best.

The cab Lyle was taking had the radio tuned to Christmas music, just as the coffee shop had been. On the ship, time passed differently; they were dates on calendars, not a true flow of time. It was as though time had stopped, and only the date was changing. Dropping him off at the electronics shop on the edge of a relatively small city, the driver even wished Lyle a Merry Christmas, and Lyle had to check the date to make sure he hadn't missed the holiday. Somehow, it was December 23rd. Somehow, he didn't feel he would be celebrating Christmas this year.

The wave Lasse sent him caught his attention, and he greeted the other man with a warm, familiar smile. It felt like his meeting all over again.

"Have a good flight?" Lasse asked, and Lyle almost laughed.

Instead, he replied, "It was very flight-like. Nothing exploded."

Lasse gave him a strange look as he clicked the car's remote unlock, boots making muddy indents in the brown, slushy snow. "That's good to hear," he said, giving Lyle an awkward smile. "Did you get the delivery?"

Lyle waved the bag that contained the envelopes with a smile, and then said, "Yup, went off without a hitch. Now I hand them to Tieria and maybe collect my pence for the efforts." He smiled at Lasse's again mildly forced laughter, a pleasant smile, but one that secretly meant anything but happiness or amusement.

The roads had been heavily traveled, brown slush even plowed off to the sides of the street, slopping and squelching as the car drove over it. The trees were bare, brown bark, and the sun had melted the glistening ice and frost off of them. Lyle was still in what had once been Russia, but the world was not the same. He humored himself by soliloquizing that the purity had been lost. "Ignorance is bliss" and all that. Those thoughts amused him off the traveled road and onto a dirt road, even more brown and disgusting, and they amused him through Lasse radioing the Ptolemaios II to surface and let them in. When he stepped out of the car, he took a moment to look at the drug-in slush and finish his ridiculous introspection with the idea that the reality with purity lost had tried to follow, but could not do so, for they had entered a world that did not truly exist.

And then he smiled and thanked Lasse for the ride, and asked one of the mechanic-Haros if it knew where Tieria might be on the ship.

A few days back, one of the girls had realized it was December, and December meant Christmas, and Christmas meant decorations, and the ship had been strung with lights, tinsel, garland, and wreaths, all through the more traveled thoroughfares. It might have been festive, if cheer had gone along with it, but it was truly a wreath on a cold, steel, whitewashed wall. It was ridiculous.

Following the Haro's directions down a hall lined with twinkling white lights until whoever had decorated had accidentally run out, and yellow lights replaced them, Lyle was able to easily find Tieria. The serious Gundam Meister was running something on a computer panel, diagnostics or hexadecimal porn, and so completely engrossed that he did not sense Lyle's presence until he reached around from behind to drop the envelope atop the computer console.

The reaction was what Lyle had hoped; Tieria jumped and spun backwards, effectively out of Lyle's reaching, putting a hand to his hip until he registered just who, exactly, had startled him.

"You can't offer a normal greeting?" Tieria asked, voice scathing. His eyes, however, drifted from Lyle's face to the file on his console. "I take it the delivery went without a hitch?" he asked, not waiting for a response to his earlier question.

Lyle picked the envelope back up and gestured with it above his head. "Special delivery and everything, all the way from one random flight away, just for you." He smiled charmingly, taking a step towards Tieria.

If something can go wrong, and your day has already been shit, Murphy's Law says it bloody well will, and if you try to fight it, it'll only get worse.

One of the mechanic Haros had been given the auspicious task of guarding the ship's patch of mistletoe, or so Lyle decided impulsively as he used his best acting to keep from shooting the damn, pink thing off the ceiling.

"Mistletoe! Mistletoe!" it said cheerfully, flapping its ear-things in a manner that had never been less cute.

"Apparently it's Christmas, after all," Lyle said, smiling his forced, but yet believable, smile, as he reached out and grabbed Tieria's collar, perhaps far more forcefully than he should have, and kissed him. Before Tieria had a chance to protest, or hit him, he slammed the envelope into Tieria's chest, and with both hands shoved the smaller man backward with enough force to slam him against the wall. He smiled again handsomely, belying his actions, and said, "Enjoy your mail."

Lyle pivoted, turned, walked away. He didn't look back at whatever expression Tieria would be holding, though he knew it would be confused, or perhaps frightened, or perhaps even furious. He had a plan, and it was bigger than some prick's emotional reaction. He was bigger than letting it affect him.

And, well, maybe he didn't want to see it.


End file.
